


Just Keep Swimming

by Cards_Slash



Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Summer Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-28
Updated: 2014-05-28
Packaged: 2018-01-26 23:19:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1706222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cards_Slash/pseuds/Cards_Slash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Malik's life is less than satisfactory but he gets by just fine.  Then he meets Altair-the-arrogant-guy who baby sits the obnoxious little girls that keep showing up at the pool.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just Keep Swimming

**Author's Note:**

> for the AU prompt asking for a life guard au. Unfortunately, the fact that Kadar is a life guard is kind of the least important part of the story.

The unfortunate truth of his life was that Malik was twenty years old and living with his Mother. That, in and of itself, might not have been the worst thing if not for the fact that he was twenty years old, living at home, sharing a bedroom with his baby brother. That, even, might have been bearable if not for the fact that he was twenty years old, living at home, sharing a room with his baby brother that was only big enough to fit a set of bunk beds and two very small dressers crammed together on the opposite wall. 

“Are you coming to the pool today?” Kadar asked him when he stepped on Malik’s arm because he was seventeen-now and too important for ladders. It might have been easy enough to sleep through (the alarm, Kadar’s snoring, his Mother shouting at them both from down the hall, and being stepped on) if not for how Kadar leaned over him and stared at his face in that singular way only annoying baby brothers could manage. “You know you want to come to the pool today. You know you do. You want to come to the pool today.”

Malik shoved him back and Kadar laughed at him. “I’ll see you there.”

\--

The pool was set across the street from the apartments, nestled in a cluster of shade trees that Kadar hated with vehemence every time he had to skim the leaves out of the water. The neighborhood kids that spent the summer plastered to the fence around the pool hated them with equal intensity every moment it kept them from leaping into the water. 

Malik watched Kadar fuss with the pool while he ate his breakfast and turned away from the window about the time a horde of screaming children raced through the open gate. He rinsed the dishes he’d used and went to find something to read for a while.

He’d had no intention at all of going to the pool. None, not a single intention. 

\--

Finding himself at the pool was not a shock so much as a disappointment. His will power had always been weakest when it came to his brother. Kadar used that to his advantage with a frequency that was _embarrassing_. Still, it brought Malik out of the cramped little apartment, across the street and into the shaded end of the pool where he dropped the beach towel he brought to cover the chair he intended to lay in and read. 

“I knew you’d come,” Kadar said. His voice wafted down from the chair he was sitting on as he watched mothers and fathers fussing with their overexcited offspring. The sound of the splashing water was a soothing backdrop save for the frequent yelps and shouts. 

Malik pulled his shirt off (no reason not to improve his tan, so to speak) and laid down on the lounge chair to read. 

It was a good half-an-hour before a kid with water streaming down his whole body and wide-brown-eyes found his way to standing on Malik’s left side. He wasn’t looking at him (of course he wasn’t) but at the stump of his left arm. The kid was just _staring_ at the old scars with a rapt attention his teachers probably would have given their own left arms to attain. “What?” Malik asked.

“What happened?” the kid asked. He had freckles on his nose when he dipped forward to drip water onto Malik’s shoulder as he turned his head to try to get a better look. Oh-but-the poor boy jumped back a good three foot when Malik lifted his left arm and he let out an ungodly squawk as he pin-wheeled his arms to try to fix his balance and ended up falling into the deep end of the pool. 

“What did you do?” Kadar shouted at him. He was on his feet on the lifeguard stand, looking at the bubbling water where the kid had gone under but he relaxed back in place when the boy came up for air. “Whatever it was, don’t do it again,” Kadar said to him.

Malik wasn’t laughing (well he was, but he was trying not to) when the kid crept back over to him with a shamefully red face but all the same interest. “Shark bit me,” Malik said. (It was not the truth.)

“Oh,” the boy whispered. But his mother had come to collect him with a reproach about bothering strangers. Her avoidance of his ‘residual arm’ was far more obnoxious than her son’s interest in it. Even as she dragged him away, the boy was looking over his shoulder at Malik with that hero-worshipping gleam in his eyes.

\--

Malik didn’t work. He could have worked, but he didn’t. The whole process of finding a meaningless summer job had proven to be one notch above too stressful for him to handle and after he put a hole in the wall of the living room his mother had calmly suggested he just enjoy the last free summers of his life.

\--

“You told Simon that you got bit by a shark,” Kadar said at the end of the day, “he told everyone at the pool that my brother got bit by a shark. They all believed him, they spent the rest of the day playing sharks and swimmers. I cannot believe you lied to a child.” 

“I cannot believe you’re surprised,” Malik countered. He shoved a bowl of casserole at his brother and ignored his sneer of distaste because the chore of making dinner every night was obnoxious enough without having ungrateful baby brothers complicating the process.

\--

Malik went back to the pool the next day, sat in the same spot and watched the children at the shallow end of the pool as they attempted to quietly play sharks and swimmers without him noticing. It was some form of politeness they were attempting but it broke down in pieces until there was one laying on the concrete at the side of the pool clutching his arm shouting, ‘it got me! It got me! My aaaaaaaaaaaaaarm.’

His mortified mother dragged him away as he sobbed and begged and pleaded to be allowed to stay.

Kadar just shook his head at Malik’s stupid grin.

\--

“What kind of shark?” Simon (the freckled boy) asked him when he managed to give his dozing-in-the-sun mother the slip. He rose out of the pool like a crocodile, dripping water all down his face as his little hands clung to the metal ladder at the deep end. “Great white? I read that great whites and tiger sharks and bull sharks are the ones most commonly responsible for attacks on humans. Was it a tiger shark?”

“I didn’t see it,” Malik said. (Because it had never happened.) 

“Do you want me to stop talking about it? My Mom says that I’m not supposed to talk about it. She told me that I should act like I didn’t notice.” The boy looked like he thought that was the stupidest thing he’d ever been told. “I can if you want.”

“I think you should do what your Mom wants. It’s the secret to a life of happiness.” Then he pointed across the pool to where Simon’s mother was squinting into the sun looking for her child. Simon made a look of momentary terror before he flung himself backward into the water and swam for his life back to the shallow end.

\--

It could have kept on like that—a whole summer of neighborhood kids staring at his shark-bitten arm until their interest and their mothers’ acute embarrassment faded into general acceptance. It wouldn’t even have been such a bad way to spend the summer—considering he had no money, limited friends and almost nothing else to do with his time. 

Then there was Altair. Altair who appeared at the gate with four little girls at his heels, each of them dressed in a neon green swimsuit with their hair in a long black French braid down their backs. They had high-pitched voices and pretty princess beach towels that they made a show of spreading across the lounge chairs. 

Altair who was six-foot-something with broad shoulders, tanned skin, full lips, short-thick brown hair and the body of an all-star athlete carelessly or mistakenly given to some lesser being. “Go,” he said to the girls that were crowding in front of him with pouting faces and whimpering please. “Jump in, don’t drown.” 

Then he sat on the shallow end with his feet in the water and permanent scowl on his face.

\--

It was actually days later when Malik learned Altair’s name. It came to him in the form of Simon (always soaked with water) who lingered at his left side with a curious-and-hurt look on his face. He had a critical eye pointedly directed at Malik’s arm. 

“What?” he said.

“Altair said if you were bit by a shark you’d have bigger scars. He told me that you were lying.” This offense seemed to be unforgiveable when Simon said it. “I told him that he was wrong and he said to ask you and see.” Then Simon crossed his arms over his chest and waited to be proven right. 

Malik sighed. “Unfortunately, Altair is right. Whoever he is.”

“He’s the guy that has the annoying girls with him all the time. You know, Abby, Whitney, Mary and Clara? They said that he had to be right and I bet them that he wasn’t right.” Simon’s scowl got all the more angry when he said it. “You owe me, man.” Then he was stomping away.

Malik didn’t see it, but Kadar told him in the evening that he had to kick the four girls and Simon out of the pool for the rest of the day after Simon pulled his swim shorts down and let the girls see his penis.

Malik laughed until he cried and Kadar just shook his head, “I can’t believe you did that to a child, Malik. You made him lose a bet. That’s all he said to me when I kicked him out. He said ‘it’s your stupid brother’s fault. He’s the liar, why do I have to go’. You owe him. I can’t believe you.”

\--

It was Altair-not-Simon who got to him first though. Altair came over like a looming shadow without his customary horde of little girls. He wasn’t dressed for the pool but wearing a pair of long shorts and a T-shirt that stretched over his body in a way that did nothing to hide the muscles under it. 

“You got the girls grounded,” he said. 

“I think the little perverts got themselves grounded,” Malik countered. 

Altair shrugged and looked around for a chair to pull up. He perched himself on the edge of one of those god-awful plastic lawn chairs and pulled his sunglasses off the top of his head to hold in his (huge) palms. “I think we can trace the blame back to you since you’re the one that lied about what happened to your arm.”

“It’s a much more direct line from perversion to grounding though,” Malik said. He set his book down and turned so his feet were on the ground and he was looking up (ever so slightly) right into Altair’s amazingly-clear eyes. And his dirty little smirk of amusement that made him look like some kind of asshole. “But for the sake of conversation, I’ll accept that the blame for Simon losing his bet.”

“That’s very gracious of you. Meanwhile, I’m stuck inside with four girls who can’t stop finding new and interesting ways to point out how they can’t go to the pool and how it’s so terrible. And it’s hot. And water would feel really good right now. And one of them wants to practice for the swim team and one of them loves mermaids—do you know that? Whitney loves mermaids and she wants to be one when she grows up but how can she be a mermaid if she can’t practice?”

Malik snorted. “I think there are bigger problems you need to address if one of them thinks they can grow into a mermaid.”

“Thankfully, I’m not the mother or father. They handle all of the mental health issues. I’m just responsible for their physical beings for eight to nine hours a day, four days a week.” Altair was looking at his left arm now with all the same pointed interest that Simon had looked at it. “What did happen?”

“I fell off my bike when I was a kid, I didn’t tell my Mom because I wasn’t supposed to be riding it without a helmet. The cut got infected and I didn’t tell her because I knew she’d put peroxide on it. About a week later, I was in the hospital with a deadly infection.” It was, quite possibly, the stupidest story ever.

“That is some kind of dumb luck,” Altair said. “The shark story is much cooler but I can’t help but feel that your story could serve as some kind of important life lesson for kids like Simon.”

Malik rolled his eyes. “I have been the butt of many life lessons. They had a whole assembly about it when I was in grade school. And every teacher I had for about five years after it happened made sure to point out that I lost an arm just because I was afraid to tell my Mom I fell off my bike.”

“Fair enough,” Altair said. “Well,” he slapped his hands on his thighs and stood up again. “Breaks over, back I go to console would-be mermaids. Wish me luck.”

Malik just waved his hand in the air in dismissal.

\--

Malik missed a few days at the pool out of bitter self-reflection and too much time spent on the internet. Kadar filled him in on how the kids had started a private betting pool to see who could figure out what had actually happened to Malik’s arm. 

“I’m not encouraging it,” Kadar said. “I mean, I’m not discouraging it because I’m there to keep them from drowning. You shouldn’t encourage it either.” That was the important part, of course, that Malik should not encourage the children.

\--

Simon came over to him on his first day back at the pool with a hesitant shuffle of feet. “Have you ever worked around heavy farming machinery?”

“No,” Malik said. 

Simon stomped away angrily and left Malik looking across the pool to where the boy stood at Altair’s side and motioned back at Malik with an aggravated huff. Oh and the utter sincerity on Altair’s face as he said something too quiet to be heard at this distance. But it looked like consolation. The boy threw his arms in the arm and resolutely tossed himself into the water between two of the four little girls. The resulting spray of water flew at Altair with nearly as much speed as the man used to jump out of its path.

He stood there with water soaking the bottom of his swim shorts like a cat that had only nearly survived a deadly encounter with a bathtub. 

\--

Malik waited for Altair the next day, waited for the girls to leap into the pool, waited for Altair to perch himself carefully at the side of the shallow end with only his legs under the water. He never got in any farther but sat there with his hands like talons around the edge of the pool. 

“Are you afraid of water?” Malik asked him. He sat next to him, stuck his own feet into the water and kicked a splash of it toward Altair. 

The man eyed him with withering disdain. “No,” Altair said. “I just don’t like pools. Or swimming.”

“Why are you here?” Malik asked.

Altair swept his hand out toward the four little girls with sun-pinked cheeks like it was so very obvious in and of itself. Then he added, “plus I get a ten dollar bonus every day I take them to the pool. Auntie Jean knows I hate the pool.” He waited a beat as the girls started dancing in a circle in the pool chanting something that sounded distinctly demonic. “Plus they sleep for like three hours after I feed them.” 

“I can see how that is definitely incentive.”

“It doesn’t hurt that you’re almost always here,” Altair said. Oh-and-his-smug-grin was so delightfully obnoxious on his stupidly handsome face. But it was his bright-clear-eyes that made Malik lose a half-a-second of time and left him looking stupid and gaping at the words. He could feel a blush on his cheeks that he was powerless to stop so he smiled back at the words and hooked his right arm around Altair’s shoulders before he threw them both forward into the water.

The sound of the whistle blowing killed any spew of angry curses that Altair looked like he was about to let loose. Kadar was standing on the chair, looking at him with a purely disbelieving look on his face. “There are children!” he said, “are you serious?”

Malik ducked back under the water and swam away from the precious-little-babies and Altair’s soaking-wet look of betrayal. He came up on the other side of the rope and swam to the metal ladder to pull himself out. Kadar was still shaking his head in disbelief when Malik looked at him.

\--

Malik was twenty, healthy and forcibly celibate. He’d had one of those fuck-buddy situations during the fall semester but by spring the stupid bastard had gone off and fallen in love with someone and became utterly worthless to him. (Well, not utterly, they were still friends.) He hadn’t gotten laid since January. His body didn’t even need the happy knowledge that Altair found him attractive to start perking up at odd moments with heated-spots of sweet fantasies about the man. 

He was smack in the middle of one such fabulous fantasy—all alone in his bedroom, securely cloistered in the small space afforded him by the sagging closeness of the top bunk. His mother wasn’t due home from work for another hour and a half and Kadar had fallen asleep in front of the TV after he begrudgingly ate the turkey burgers that Malik had graciously made for them. 

There should have been plenty of time for him to indulge himself (different than the hurried masturbating he did in the shower) but that was before Kadar ran face-first into the locked door and stood just beyond it saying: “Malik! I’m tired! Can’t you just do it in the shower like always? The whole room is going to smell like jizz!” 

“I actually hate you!” Malik shouted back. “Go away. Sleep in Mom’s room.”

Kadar’s wordless aggravation was like a growl. He kicked the door again. “Use air freshener when you’re done!”

“Go the fuck away!” Malik shouted back.

\--

Thursdays were (as Kadar put it) ‘slow in the mornings’ so Malik took up a seat on the sunnier side of the pool where the parents and children normally crowded and enjoyed the heated grip of the bright sunlight. He was pleasantly warm and suitably relaxed—ignorant to the comings and goings of pool guests that did not sit by him. He dozed off to the comforting sound of fresh air and sunshine interrupted only now and again by the squeak of the gate.

He woke up to a shadow falling half-across his vision, opened his eyes just in time to see (and hear) Altair pop the top off two of the biggest blue slushies he had ever seen in his entire life. Malik managed to raise his arm up halfway to protecting himself from the imminent cascade of icy-cold-blue-slush that hit his chest and spread over his body in an icy slide as he jumped up. It fell off him in clumps and fat sloppy drops.

Altair looked positively giddy with a strangely high laugh. 

“Are you kidding me?” Kadar shouted from across the pool. But he sounded like he was trying not to laugh. “You better run,” his baby-brother said just seconds before Altair turned tail and took off. 

“I am going to kill you!” Malik screamed after him. He jumped over the chair that Altair and thrown in his way and slammed into the gate just in time to keep it from latching. There was an appalled looking woman with a fat-faced little toddler on her hip that he had to skate around. 

Altair was running along the sidewalk that fed into the playground that was one long stretch of green grass with a pathetic jungle gym at the end. The asshole was fast right up to the point where he slowed down, turned halfway around and grabbed Malik to throw him on the ground. They rolled through the pokey grass and skidded to a stop with Altair’s hot (and attractive) body stretched over his. 

Malik was out-of-breath from exertion and Altair was trying to act like he wasn’t even slightly winded by his mad dash toward freedom. “Asshole,” Malik said. 

“I tried to tell you I thought you were attractive and you threw me in the pool,” Altair said. “I think you set the asshole bar pretty high. Besides your brother is the one that told me to do it.” He looked pretty damn pleased with himself about it though. Almost as pleased as he looked when he realized how indecently close they were to one another. He shifted his hips back a bit and ran his finger through a melting streak of blue slush on Malik’s chest and licked it off his fingers. “It’s my day off. If you’re not terribly busy I’d love to do something with you.”

“First I need a shower.” He shoved Altair off (not that he wanted to) and got back up to his feet. “Come on.”

\--

Altair was watching edited for time and content movie on TV when Malik came out of the bathroom feeling significantly less sticky. He was also significantly still shirtless when he sat on the couch next to Altair. 

“Have you lived here very long?” the man asked him.

“About fourteen years,” Malik said, “ever since my Dad left. How about you?”

“I moved in with my Auntie Jean for the summer because I couldn’t find a roommate for the summer. I got lucky last year—lots of friends with couches—but my Mom convinced me that I could help my Auntie Jean out with the girls. Because I look like the sort of guy that wants to babysit.” He motioned at his body like there was some special look to a person that enjoyed watching children. (Whatever he thought that look was, he clearly did not have it.) “I was feeling pretty bitter about it before.”

“Before what?” Malik asked.

“I refuse to answer that question based on the fact that it’s clearly fishing for more compliments.” He didn’t even have to answer it because he was looking at Malik’s face and his bare chest with a keen interest that spoke for him. 

Malik considered his options very, very carefully before he shifted in toward Altair’s body and pulled him down by the neck to kiss him. (It was always important to consider one’s options before ultimately going with the gut impulse to have sex.) One or two idiot boys had ruined their chances by muttering something about how eager he was but Altair kissed him with equal hunger as he wrapped two arms around Malik’s body and dragged him bodily into his lap. Altair’s massive palms were all over his back and chest the way his slick-tongue was slipping into Malik’s mouth. 

It was easy as anything to make himself comfortable in Altair’s lap, to work his hand under Altair’s stupid T-shirt and feel the oh-so-perfect heat of his body. His skin was soft and his body was firm and Malik leaned forward into the kiss with a needful little rock of his hips he didn’t even have enough brain power to be embarrassed by. 

“Oh shit,” Altair was saying against his mouth. His shoulders were pressed to the back of the couch and his head was resting on the overstuffed cushion bunched up at the top. His knees were opening wider between Malik’s knees. There was one-two-pants of his breath before Altair was pulling Malik back in to kiss him again (possessive and assertive and hot-as-hell). His other hand was off Malik’s skin and down at his own pants opening the button and zipper with utter arrogance. 

Malik opened his mouth to announce he was not a foregone conclusion and found himself staring down between their bodies at Altair’s long-and-thick and _hard_ dick. Everything he had meant to say about assumptions was lost in the sudden _need_. “Take my pants off,” he said when he wrapped his hand around Altair’s dick.

“All the way?” Altair asked. But he only managed to get them open and pull Malik’s dick out before his attention faltered and he was too busy tonguing Malik to care about whether or not his shorts needed to be removed completely. They rutted like animals, grunting into one another’s mouths with a lack of shame that was downright dizzying. 

\--

Altair cleaned up in the bathroom and Malik washed himself with a handful of paper towels at the kitchen sink. He stuffed them guiltily into the bottom of the trash under the wrappers from last night’s dinner and sprayed enough air freshener in the living room to put another hole in the ozone. 

“Fuck,” Altair said when he came back into the room. He wrinkled up his nose at the smell and Malik rolled his eyes before he shoved him out the door. Once they were out on the sidewalk, Altair said, “so I’d be lying if things didn’t work exactly like I hoped—but orgasms aside, I’d actually like to get to know you.”

“How gentlemanly of you,” Malik said. He would have said more but his brother was crossing the street from the pool with a look of murder on his face. “I think you should run,” he said.

Altair looked up to see Kadar and sighed. “Maybe tomorrow?”

“Yeah, sounds great.” But Altair was gone before Kadar got there and started yelling at him about leaving disastrous blue slushie messes and keeping his ‘damn flirting’ away from the ‘damn pool’ because ‘there are impressionable young children you asshole’. Malik nodded along and interjected with slight corrections. He stayed out on the sidewalk as Kadar walked toward the front door. The scream of aggravation that echoed out through the hall was reason enough to take a nice walk before he had to figure out what to make for dinner.

\--

As it turned out, ‘doing something’ with Altair involved sitting on the uncomfortable wooden bench in his swim trunks and a tank-top while they watched four overly excited little girls in neon bathing suits run around the park. 

“What did you feed them?” Malik asked.

“Auntie Jean made them ice cream sundaes for breakfast because it’s Whitney’s birthday and that’s what she wanted.”

“Does your Auntie Jean secretly hate you?”

Altair snorted at that. He motioned at the girls to keep running and took advantage of their distraction to bump into Malik’s undefended left side with his elbow. When Malik turned to look at him Altair kissed him and was gone again before any of the girls noticed him. “Auntie Jean is my Mother’s best friend since high school. She was like a second mother to me before she moved away. If she secretly hates me, she keeps it very, very secret. Was your brother really mad?”

“Who cares if he was?” Malik said. “He’s given me enough trouble, it’s only fair I return the favor.”

“Fair enough.” 

“Do you have a traumatic pool-related back story about why you hate pools?” Malik asked. 

Altair looked like he was going to call Malik stupid for a second but his mouth changed the shape of his words at the last moment. He said, “not one I remember. My Mom says that when I was really little my Dad fell asleep when I was playing in a wading pool and nobody knows what happened but I’ve hated them ever since. She brought it up a lot when I was younger.”

They were quiet a moment as the girls ran in dizzying circles until one of them (the smallest one) seized the ladder that took her to the top of the slide and announced she was the queen of everything. There arguing was loud enough to echo across the open field to the pool but Altair just leaned back against the bench and watched without intervening. 

“Auntie Jean said I could use her car tonight. Interested?”

“In what?” Malik asked. He was caught in the drama unfolding before them as the sisters broke down in pitiful shrieks of frustration and accusations of ‘just not understanding’ because ‘you’re a baby’.

“I don’t know. Anything? I’ll come pick you up at like seven. We’ll find something to do with ourselves.” Then he stood up and whistled over the rising din of chaos and motioned them all toward the pool.

\--

“Going out tonight,” was the five-second warning he gave his mother before he was out the door and hovering on the sidewalk in front of the steps to his apartment. Altair got there five minutes late with a confused glance between Malik and the apartment door he was obviously headed for. Whatever commentary he was thinking about making wasn’t important enough to voice. 

They were both poor (so Altair said) so they ended up walking around a long strip mall. Altair had the terrible habit of _touching_ , always with his hands and fingers on everything that looked interesting in texture. He rubbed his fingertips on paintings in the shop that sold over-priced-things that looked fancier than they were. He laid on the mattresses in the mattress store and had to pick up and fondle every shoe in the shoe store.

“I like these,” he said. They were gray and ordinary looking with a sixty dollar price tag. When Altair looked at him for approval he rolled his eyes at the expression Malik must have been making. “Has anyone ever told you that you are a killjoy?”

“Yes. I think I was voted most likely to kill joy in high school.”

Altair growled in frustration as they left the store. Out on the sideway he threw his arms in the air and turned in a dramatic twirl so he was facing Malik as he stepped backward without even the briefest glance over his shoulder to be sure he wasn’t going to run into something. “Do you also pop children’s balloons?”

“Only after I’ve told them there is no Santa Claus.” He wasn’t expecting Altair to stop dead so he didn’t slow down but find himself running face-first into the man who wrapped both arms around him in quite possibly the smoothest manner possible. Altair was nose-to-nose with him, body slouching just enough to smile right over Malik’s scowl. “What are you doing?”

“Smile,” Altair said.

“No. Move.” He shoved at Altair and succeeded only in getting him to swing around and hug Malik from behind. They managed a few stumbling footsteps with Altair’s bony chin in his shoulder and his long arms around Malik’s chest before they nearly fell over. “What are you doing?” Malik asked.

“Are you ticklish?”

“No.”

“Really?” Then fingers were sneaking under his arms and across his side and Malik twisted away from it, threw his elbow against Altair’s body and tried so hard not to laugh like a cackling idiot (and failed) before he managed to get free enough to turn and glare at the jerk. Altair was far-too-pleased with his victory to be chastised so Malik turned and started running instead.

It was a mad dash across the strip mall, in through the five dollar store and out again as they were yelled at by angry clerks. He skidded across a crosswalk, jumped over a line of abutments and zigzagged his way through parked cars. A horn blaring at his left side made him run faster (not slower) and Altair’s angry wordless noise behind him had him grinning over his shoulder. 

Malik crashed into a frozen yogurt shop and pulled to a short stop that made Altair bump into his back with a complete lack of grace. They both fell forward and were saved only by Altair’s quick-recovery as he pulled Malik up to his feet and put an arm around his shoulders. 

“You’re going to drive me crazy, aren’t you?” Altair said. His face was pink and his hair was sweaty and there was a joy in his eyes that bordered on an utter lack of sanity itself. 

They got frozen yogurt (Altair paid) and ate out at the little metal tables as the sky grew darker and the employees stuck inside gave them withering glances about how their presence was dragging in more than the average number of last-minute guests. 

“I don’t want to go back,” Altair said when they were walking across the parking lot toward the car. 

“I think your Auntie Jean would notice if you never brought her car back.” But Malik understood that feeling, the impermanent feeling of freedom that made the day-to-day captivity of life tolerable. 

“Yeah probably,” Altair said. They drove back to the apartments in sullen silence. Altair walked him back to his own apartment. Malik pulled him into the shadowed corner under the steps that led to his apartment and kissed him. 

“What are you doing between eight thirty and nine tomorrow morning?” Malik asked. Because Altair felt-fucking-perfect against his body. 

“Nothing,” Altair said. He was grinning like a loon when he said it and Malik kissed him again because there was no use in pretending that they weren’t making plans to get naked together in the morning. Altair’s hands were under his shirt and Malik was biting a moan into the man’s neck that was sure to leave a faint outline of teeth. 

\--

“Why is Altair here?” Kadar asked two mornings later when he was running late for his pool job. He looked from where Altair was attempting to maintain casual disinterest at the bottom of the stairs to where Malik was very literally shoving his brother out of the house. “Oh my God,” Kadar said, “that’s why the whole damn apartment smells like cinnamon apples all the time!”

“Get out,” Malik said. 

“Getting laid should be improving your mood,” Kadar said as he picked up his bag and allowed himself to be shoved out of the door. He was muttering all the way down the stairs and past Altair who smiled at him and received a withering glare in return. 

“Is that a family thing?” Altair asked. 

“The glare? Yeah.” That was all the time they had for intelligent conversation before Malik was dragging Altair down the hall to his tiny bedroom with the ridiculous bunk beds. They fell into making out like the horny teenagers they (technically) were not. Altair stripped them both naked in a matter of minutes. 

\--

The bet at the pool had not gone away. Malik sat in his well shaded corner and waited for curious children to find him and ask random-questions about placed-he’d been and things-he’d done. 

“Have you ever been on a helicopter?”

“Have you been bitten by a snake?”

“Have you been on a speedboat?”

“Did you ever use a chainsaw?”

“Did you fall asleep on a railroad track?”

But his favorite was the littlest of the girls that Altair looked after that came up to him with big-eyes and water falling out of her messy black hair. She said (oh so quietly), “was it a dragon?”

Malik assured her it wasn’t and she let out a breath of relief before marching back down the pool to shout at her older sisters about how they were liars.

\--

On a lazy Tuesday, Altair nagged him into walking the girls up to the convenience store on the corner. The four of them had a few dollars each and were in desperate need of spending it. Malik pulled a shirt on and shuffled along with the world’s slowest moving caravan toward the promise of nonspecific treats. 

“This is your life, Altair,” Malik said.

“I’m aware. You should come back home with us and the girls can show you Mermaid Princess—there’s a mermaid and she’s a princess.” He even put his hands together and stuck his lower lip out like he could use childish begging to get what he wanted. 

“Fine,” Malik said. “Only for you.”

He spent three hours watching the Mermaid Princess movie before finding himself in the middle of some sort of regal ceremony. Altair ended up wearing a crown and a feathery-pink boa while he held a scepter with one pinkie sticking out. Whitney (the little one) stood on a footstool wearing something that had to have belonged to her mother while she sang off-key. 

Malik mistakenly agreed to have his fingernails painted and was then attacked by rabid girls with hair clips and sparkly nail polish while Altair watched victoriously.

\--

Auntie Jean came home at six and Malik was lingering in the kitchen exchanging pointless complaints over the mundane necessity of cooking. Altair was separating steaming fish sticks onto four separate plates while he laughed over Kadar’s deep and abiding hatred of Hamburger Helper. 

“Hello,” Auntie Jean (who Malik had not seen before) said. She put one soft hand on his shoulder and looked past him to where Altair was standing. Altair glanced at the clock and then back at her with childish horror on his face. “Are you Malik?”

“Yes,” he said.

She looked at the clip still caught in his hair, the long string of beads hanging around his neck and the sparkly pink nail polish all over his fingers before she smiled. “I see the girls have gotten their hands on you. I’m Auntie Jean, the nightmares’ Mother. I’ve got this Altair, why don’t you go out for a while?”

“You sure?” Altair asked. But who was really going to protest being handed keys and being shooed away. 

\--

They gorged on dollar-menu burgers and laid out in the grass by a lazy lake and watched the stars come out. Altair babbled nonsense about Astrology and Astronomy and how he was named after a star. Malik listened to him and let the cadence of his voice lull him into something like sleep.

“Hey,” Altair said after a while. He had rolled over so he was looking down at him. “Are you asleep?”

“No.” He smiled when said it because it was almost a lie and Altair poked him in the most ticklish place on his side before he flopped back in place next to him. “This is really nice,” he said. “I enjoyed it.”

\--

At the pool it was:

“Grizzly bear?”

“Samurai?”

“Pressure cooker?”

“Monster truck rally?”

“Did you stick your arm out of the car window? Was it the ice cream truck?” That one he assured the girl that asked had not happened to him. She was still sort of horrified by the whole notion of it when she went away. 

Clara came over to him and said, “Altair said he’d get in the water if you went down there and got in the water with him. He said that he needs someone strong to hold his hand. He said that I wouldn’t come over here and tell you but I did.” Then she was skipping away again.

“You’re an idiot,” is what Malik said to Altair as they stood in the shallow end of the pool. Altair held his hand the whole time, fingers squeezing his in an almost painful grip. 

\--

On Altair’s next day off, he showed up at eight forty five (to avoid Kadar, most likely) with a bag full of movies, snacks and sodas that he bequeathed unto Malik with ceremonial flare. “It is time to update your sorely lacking pop culture education.” 

“Right after you blow me,” Malik said. Because they had a steady thing going and his body had been all but buzzing since the clock hit eight thirty and Altair hadn’t been right there ready and willing. 

Altair sighed, “I knew you only wanted me for my body.” He was easy to pull down the hall though. 

\--

Altair met Malik’s mother (by accident) when her car wouldn’t start and her frantic worry about losing the job she’d had for twenty damn years made Kadar punch Malik like he could figure out what to do about her damn car in six seconds. 

“Go get your boyfriend,” Kadar hissed at him, “doesn’t he have a car?”

Altair did not have a car but Malik went to ask him if he could use his Aunt Jeanie’s car to take his Mother to work anyway. The man was sleep-rumpled and surly at seven-thirty in the morning but his Auntie was perky and sweet as she agreed to let them use her car and recommended a good mechanic to look at his Mom’s. 

“You owe me,” Altair grumbled. 

“Buy some condoms and lube and I’ll reward you richly.” He smiled right at Altair’s stunned face seconds before they turned the corner to greet his frantic mother wringing her hands over bad luck. Malik was smirking the whole time she introduced herself to Altair and the man tried to engage in a conversation while struggling with sleepiness and sudden sexual frustration.

\--

“I think your Mom is like the nicest person on the planet,” Altair told him at eight thirty when he reappeared. “She gave me like fifteen dollars.” He pulled the money out of his pocket and handed it back to Malik. “And I’m pretty sure she thanked me eight hundred times.”

“Yeah, she’s good.” It was not at all casual sounding. Kadar was resolutely pulling his bag on as slowly as possible as he glared at the two of them. “Would you get lost already?” he said.

“Oh I’m sorry am I keeping you from something?” Kadar said. 

“I was going to fuck your brother when you left. I mean you can watch if you’re into that kind of thing,” Altair said. It was the first time-ever that he’d gotten involved in Kadar’s increasingly stubborn (and ridiculous) need to delay leaving the apartment. Altair even pulled a condom out of his pocket and motioned down the hall to punctuate his words. “No? Have a good day! I’ll see you later!” he shouted.

Malik was laughing too hard to feel bad for poor precious Kadar. Altair kicked he door shut and picked him up to carry him down the hall to his room. “Have you done this before?” Malik asked when they were safely in his room.

“Yeah,” Altair said. “You?”

Malik nodded. Then they were kissing like the very first day, pulling their clothes off and making a mess of themselves all over Malik’s little bunk bed. Altair wasn’t shy-or-fumbling, not even vaguely-grossed out. (Some guys just were not into anal sex.) He worked Malik over with one eye on the clock so that by the time he finally slid his dick in, Malik was clawing at him because he was so-damn-ready. 

They were both giggling idiots when the bed started squeaking violently and bashing against the wall with every one of Altair’s thrusts until he went still from choking on laughs. Malik wrapped his legs around him and motioned them to the side so they were falling off the bed and hitting the ground. 

\--

By the middle of July, the pot for the pool bet had grown to epic proportions. It was a private thing (so he was informed by Abby, Clara, Mary and Whitney) but it involved six rubber band bracelets, one ring, seven chocolate candy bars, ten dollars in cold hard cash and a make-your-own-book bag activity kit (only colored on a little). 

The pot was big but the kids had mostly wandered away in enthusiasm and interest. It was mostly Simon and the girls that were still following him around trying to figure out the answer. Simon’s Mother shot Malik terrible and unforgiving glares every time he indulged the child in his curiosity.

“Escalator accident?” No. “Car accident?” No. “Did you stick your arm out of a moving roller coaster?” 

“Are all children as violent as you are?” Malik asked. He couldn’t remember now if he’d been full of vivid images of blood, guts and unimaginable pain as Simon seemed to be. (Probably, but that was a very long time ago now.) “No.”

“Hm,” Simon said. “I’ll think of more.” Then he was gone again to report his findings back to Altair’s sympathetic ear. 

Kadar just sighed. “Have you considered going into teaching, Malik? I’m sure there’s a whole new generation of children you could needlessly torment and you could get paid for it.”

“It’s not torment,” Malik said, “They’re clearly enjoying it.” 

“Yeah, they are but I think it’s kind of bad manners for you to convince this many children it’s okay to make bets based on why amputees have lost their limbs. Not everyone in the world finds it as amusing as you do, apparently.” Kadar, for instance, never found it amusing. More often than not he found it the very opposite of amusing.

“Good to know I’m not the only killjoy in the family.” He picked up his towel and book and left the pool because Kadar was being pissy and there was no point in trying to relax while his brother was dividing his attention between watching children in the water and lecturing him about how he should handle his own fucking life.

\--

Altair got the car again on a Wednesday so they went to a late movie (only five dollars on weekdays) and sat out in front of the theater for a while after talking about their favorite parts and actors and the whole meaning of the universe. Altair was doing backflips to show off (no other logical reason) while Malik stood on the benches and explained to him exactly why he was wrong about pirating movies.

“I don’t really care,” Altair said when he was upright again. “I just like listening to you argue.”

“Well, you’d be the first one.”

“Seriously, were you in debate? Are you considering a career as a professionally argumentative person? You would be great.” He stepped up onto the bench in a great show of effortless strength as he spoke. 

“I think they call those lawyers,” Malik said.

“Lobbyists, politicians, there are a lot of professionally argumentative people. But what are you in school for? Are you in school?”

“History. Yes, I’m in college, at least until the scholarships run out. I haven’t had to apply for loans yet—thank God—but I guess it’s just a matter of time before that becomes inevitable. What about you?”

“I’m undecided at this point. Why don’t you have a summer job?” He asked it like he’d been dying to ask it for so long it must have left a burn mark on his tongue. Altair didn’t even look sheepish when he asked him about it, just the same level curiosity he always had. 

“Habit. I tried to get a job when I was sixteen but nobody would hire me and I thought I was just too young. But nobody hired me at seventeen either and I got really angry about it and punched the wall so my Mom told me I didn’t need to worry about it.”

Altair considered that for a second as he stepped up onto the back of the bench and balanced himself on one foot. “Why were you so angry?”

“Because I was seventeen, probably. My Mom thinks everything that happens is because I’m missing an arm. She hasn’t stopped blaming herself for not noticing my arm was rotting off since it happened. I think I didn’t get hired because I’m…impersonal.” He shrugged because it was old-news-now and it didn’t matter.

“I’m not suggesting you get a customer service job. I’m just saying it’s a whole different world when you don’t have to live with your Mom and share bunk beds with your almost adult brother.” Altair hopped off the end of the bench and spread his arms with a pink expression of accomplishment that Malik rolled his eyes at. “I may be shopping around for a roommate too. My Mom called and said she can’t afford to put me back in the dorms but I’m pretty sure that’s because Roy decided he’d rather have the cash to stuff in his pillows. See, he figures that I’m doing so well where I’m at there’s no reason I can’t just stay. It’s hard to object to that on the basis that I’d rather live somewhere I can play loud music, drink illegally and have sex in the kitchen.”

“Why the kitchen?” Malik asked.

“I get hungry.” Altair grinned like a fool when he said it. “I’ve got to take the car back.”

\--

Malik stupidly got up early to go to the bathroom with the intention of going back to his bed and sleeping until a more godly hour (after seven thirty, maybe). He stumbled out into the hall and into the bathroom and almost made it back to his room except his Mom was standing there in her fluffy pajamas with a mug of black coffee. 

“Hey Mom,” he said.

“You’re getting too skinny,” she said back.

He looked down at his own body and tried to figure out if it looked, in any way, different than the last time he’d looked at it. But her face had that faraway look of trouble that meant she’d come face-to-face with all her own failures in life and he was about to be subjected to a long drawling mumble of her guilt. It was more than he could manage at six in the morning so he shuffled forward and put his arm around her slim little shoulders. “I love you, Mom,” he said.

“I love you too,” she said. She held her mug to the side and hugged him with her other arm. 

\--

Altair interrupted his mid-morning snooze with his great shadow hanging over him. The girls were sitting in chairs at the end of the pool waiting for Altair to come back so they could get into the water. “My Auntie Jean has to work late tonight. Please help me with the heathens. Please? Please?”

Malik said, “only because you asked so nicely.”

But hours later when he was sitting around the table watching Altair get steadily more arrogant as he won piece after piece of jewelry in a board game where the objective was to become gaudier than everyone else first. By the time he got a tiara he was crowing his achievement in the deep voice of a megalomaniac shouting: “I am the prettiest princess!”

“I think you broke him,” Malik said to Whitney. (He liked her because she was the smallest and still the meanest of them all.)

“He came that way,” she said, “I’m surprised it took you so long to notice.”

They played Uno after with modified rules where they took turns making up ridiculous phrases the others had to say when they got down to one card. Malik managed to say ‘I’m a pretty purple princess’ with a straight face but Altair broke down in hitching sobs of laughter when he had to get ‘let’s ride the pony!’

The night ended with a kid’s movie while Altair did dishes in the kitchen. Malik was leaning against the low counter with a towel over his shoulder listening to the girls’ hard bought silence. 

“This doesn’t drive you crazy?” Malik asked, “Baby-sitting?”

“Well, it’s not how I would have preferred to spend my summer but you know, you gotta do whatever you have to do I guess. They aren’t that bad. Like I said, I was bitterer about it before you.” Altair flicked water at him and Malik hit him with the towel. They finished the dishes and made popcorn for the girls before they collapsed into the couch and watched the end of the overtly girly movie about mermaids or something.

\--

Eight thirty on a Thursday, Malik pulled the door open for Altair and motioned at Kadar and his equally immature jerk friend who were shouting loudly at the TV. The jerk friend had brought his Xbox over and the two of them had declare that this was all they were going to do the rest of the day.

“If they’re out here, they’re not in your bedroom,” Altair pointed out. Because his body like Malik’s body had adjusted itself to the very-nearly daily schedule of sex. Malik didn’t even have to point out that he was willing to do a fairly large number of embarrassing things for sex but trying to be quiet while two jerk seventeen year olds shouted at the TV down the hall was not among them. “Fine,” he said with a long whine, “want to go walk around? There’s a thrift store or something nearby isn’t there?”

“Yeah, I guess. Let me get my shoes.”

They spent the whole of the day walking up and down the street going into shops and trying on terrible shirts at the thrift store. Altair bought them terrible tattoos out of the quarter machine at the dollar store and they huddled into the foul-smelling bathroom and stuck them on each other like idiots.

“Dolphins look good on you,” Altair said.

“Not as good as anchors look on you.” He spread his fingers across the tattoo that he’d put just above the waistband of Altair’s pants on his left side. “Maybe they decided to go to the pool or something,” Malik said.

“Yeah,” Altair said agreeably. “It’s a hot day. Why wouldn’t they?”

By the time they got back to Malik’s apartment the two jerks had left—a note on the table told Malik where and that didn’t matter as much as the fact that his brother was gone for at least another hour. Altair picked him up and carried him down the hall. Malik sucked hickeys into his neck because it was hot as hell but vaguely insulting to be carried around.

\--

“Are we actually going to get dinner tonight?” Kadar asked in the middle of his break. He looked like a dried out husk of the person he had been at the start of summer. (Malik had pointed out how much Kadar disliked heat and Kadar had insisted on being a life guard.) 

“Fuck you,” Malik mumbled. He was looking at jobs on his laptop while Kadar listened to some obnoxious cartoon most likely directed at much younger children. 

“That’s the fucking problem,” Kadar snapped back. “Ever since you started boning Altair nothing else seems to matter to you. Did you know that Mom was worried about getting laid off? Or how much it cost to get the car fixed? Does it even make a difference to you?”

Malik closed his computer and stared right back into Kadar’s aggravated face. “One day you’re realize that Mom is always on the verge of being laid off, the car always cost more than we can pay and even if it does make a difference to me, there’s nothing I can do about it. You’re almost a fucking adult, make your own damn dinner.” He stood up and meant to walk out of the stifling tightness of the living room but Kadar grabbed him by the arm and pulled him back. “Let me go!” Malik shouted.

“Don’t walk away from me!” Kadar shoved him when Malik slapped him. They hadn’t been afforded the opportunity to fight often. (Mother had forbidden it after the amputation.) But the few times they managed to work up to physical fights had been memorable occasions. Malik elbowed Kadar in the chest and they ended up falling on their faces on the floor. 

Malik kicked Kadar in the leg, got slammed into the floor and punched his brother in the gut hard enough to make him grab his stomach with both arms and go still. His voice was a high whistle of pain that came out like a gasping wheeze. Malik wiggled up and put his hand on Kadar’s back but got shoved back. 

“Get away from me!” Kadar shouted at him. He was stumbling up to his feet. “At least you used to be useful,” his brother hissed at him before he grabbed his bag and left.

\--

Malik made dinner and left it for his Mom and Kadar. He sat on the balcony until his Mom found him and handed him a glass of lemonade with a dozen ice cubes in it. She was wearing her bathrobe in the middle of summer like it was cold outside. Before she sat she pulled it tighter around her body and then collapsed into the rickety old rocking chair Kadar-and-him had gotten her about a thousand years ago for Mother’s Day.

“Why is your brother mad at you?” she asked. 

“Because I’m a worthless slut that can’t get a job or make dinner,” Malik said. He set the glass of lemonade down on the concrete floor of the balcony and looked out-away-over the pool and the grass behind it. The sun was starting to go down and there was a few families lingering by the water waiting to be told to leave. 

“I can’t imagine your brother called you a worthless slut,” Mom said. She rocked the chair slow-and-steady the way she always had. They used to sit out here, all of them, Kadar with his little fat face in her lap and Malik in his very own chair (big and tall and oh-so-proud). “I think he’s afraid of losing you. It’s natural. There hasn’t ever been a moment in our lives before when I thought: oh, Malik is ready now, Malik is going to leave now. It can see it in you now. Kadar can see it too. So be patient with him.”

“Pretty sure I’m right, but I’ll try to be patient about it.”

She kicked him gently on the leg and turned her attention out toward the comings-and-goings below them.

\--

At the pool, Altair dragged him into the water and then leaned in against his side and said, “why is your brother giving me the stink eye?”

Malik looked up at Kadar who was looking pointedly in any direction but where they stood. Then he sighed and said (as quietly as he could manage), “he hates you.”

Altair looked completely offended but the girls dragged his attention away from that problem and onto the ever complicated untangling of sisterly bickering. When Malik left, they were all whining about how they had to get out of the water to go have lunch while Altair used his silent-glaring to answer their every whimper.

It was after six-thirty when his Mom answered the door and found Altair standing there with a shocked-into-polite-smiling expression on his face that did nothing to hide the fact that he’d been scowling the whole way to their front door. His Mom invited him but Altair declined so Malik went outside with him. 

“It’s hot,” Malik said.

Altair led them over to the big brick sign that announced the name of the apartment complex (as if they had all forgotten) and sat on the top of it like he needed somewhere to perch himself to keep from pacing. There was a whole coiled spring of nervous energy that emanated out from his body in a decidedly unpleasant way. “Why does your brother hate me?”

“You’re seriously this upset about it?” Malik asked.

“That depends on whether or not you were just being an asshole by saying that or if he actually hates me—well it doesn’t, but who and what I’m upset at depends on which it is.” He sat there with his shoulders rolled forward and his hands gripping the top bricks. 

Malik just sighed. “He’s mad at me. I think it’s because I’m a worthless slut that didn’t make his dinner when his spoiled ass wanted it and my Mom thinks it’s because he’s afraid I’m going to move out and leave him. Either way, he’s pissed at you because I like you.”

Altair didn’t say anything but sat there for a long moment. It was an eternity-and-a-half with Malik standing on his bare feet in the pokey underbrush and Altair perched over his head like a great angry animal. “Why are you a slut?”

“Because I like sex,” Malik said. “Look, he’ll be over it in a few days.”

“I don’t give a damn about your brother’s bitch fit, Malik. He’s like seventeen years old that’s pretty much all they do. I think the bigger problem here is that I asked you a real question and you gave me a shit answer.” He slid off the bricks now, got close enough that the height of his body was an imposing force and Malik took a step backward. 

“I didn’t realize you wanted to have an in-depth discussion about my baby brother’s emotional constipation at the pool. But you know, next time I’ll know.” Malik was inching backward while Altair just stared at him like he was too stupid to bother with. That same frustrating arrogance was all over his face—the way it had been in the first days—that look that announced Altair was superior-in-all-things. “What?” Malik demanded.

“Nothing,” Altair said. “I should get back home.” He was gone before Malik could protest.

\--

Nothing was never nothing. Malik spent two days wallowing in self-pity and deep-seated loathing for his brother, Altair and the world at large. He laid around the house, watched endless movies and filled out pointless applications for jobs that he had no hope of getting. By the start of the third day, Kadar was angrier at him than he had been at the start.

“You know,” he said with both hands on his hips and that haughty know-it-all tone in his voice. “I didn’t think you were a worthless slut before but since I’ve just spent the past two days watching Altair sighing over how you fucking disappeared from the face of the planet I’m starting to change my mind.”

“Stay out of it,” Malik said. He pulled his blanket up over his head. “It’s none of your business.”

“Get over yourself,” Kadar snapped back. Then he was gone.

\--

Altair let himself in on day five and came back to the bedroom where Malik was hiding in the dreary dimness of the bottom bunk. He was reading all the many nonsense things he’d written on the bottom of his brother’s mattress between the metal rungs and then there was Altair in his room, dropping a bag on the floor and sitting cross legged a respectful distance away.

“Breaking and entering now?” Malik said.

“Kadar told me I could. So, I came over here to tell you how fucking pissed off I am about your maturity level. I’ve been rehearsing a speech in my head for a few hours.”

“If that’s what you want, you can just e-mail me a copy.” He rolled onto his right side and propped his head up with his hand. “I’ll let you know if it’s better or worse than the last person who gave me the same lecture.”

“I’m falling in love with you,” Altair said. Outright, just like that, like it could be said so very easily and fearlessly. 

“Why?” Malik asked. It was the very first thing that he could make sense of in his head and the very first thing that made its way out of his mouth. Once it was out, the word sounded so damn embarrassing that his skin started blushing up pink.

“Because you’re interesting, resilient, grouchy, stubborn and funny. I just thought that you should know, regardless of what you think of yourself, I think you’re amazing. That seemed more important than yelling at you about how you hurt my feelings.”

Oh-but-it was so much more effective at making Malik feel like an ass than a lecture would have. He looked down at his worn-out bed sheet because he couldn’t look at Altair. He said, “I’m sorry. I don’t do this, I don’t find people who like me. I don’t like most people so it’s not like it’s one-sided.”

“Yeah, well I need you to make an effort.”

Malik wanted to snort at the stupidity of that statement (of how often he’d heard it) and instead he said, “I can do that.” 

Altair smiled at him and it was so-fucking-wonderful to see after days of hibernating in his own self-pity. “I’ve brought movies. Get your smelly ass up and let’s go pretend to watch them.”

\--

Finding himself at Auntie Jean’s at seven in the evening listening to little girls giggle outside of Altair’s door had become a thing for Malik. He liked laying on the tiny twin bed that Altair slept on and looking at the pale-pink walls covered with pretty ballet-shoe border all around the top edge. There was a delicate looking pink flower painted on the closet door and the dresser that Altair had covered in clothes (rather than putting them away) had roses on the knobs. 

“Don’t say a word,” was all Altair had said before he allowed Malik into his room. It had been Clara’s before Altair moved in and now she was forced back into the room full of ‘babies’ with the other girls and she hated it. 

Outside of the door the girls were all whispering to one another, shushing whenever they got too loud and being not-at-all slightly covert about their desire to hear Malik and Altair making out. Every time they thought they heard something they started giggling insanely.

“I need a job. I managed to convince my Mom that this whole arrangement was fine for the summer but Uncle George was going to be back from deployment soon and seven people in a three bedroom apartment would be torture. She said she can pay half my rent if I can find somewhere to live and pay the other half. You know, within reason.” He had his laptop settled in his lap with his back against the wall. 

Malik was laying along the bed with Altair’s legs over his enjoying the peaceful closeness of the man. He might even have snoozed a bit while Altair complained about the very many jobs that he’d applied for and wasn’t going to get. “There’s an Uncle George?”

“Yes,” Altair said. 

The door opened but instead of four shame-faced giggling girls it was just Auntie Jean with a quiet smile on her face, “I’m putting the girls to bed if you’d like to move to the living room.” Sometimes, although Altair denied it, Malik was convinced Auntie Jean leaved in moral fear of finding out they were having sex in the room. 

So they moved out to the overstuffed couch in the living room and Malik leaned against Altair’s shoulder as they went through possible jobs and found their odds getting depressingly worse with every application they looked at.

“There’s a few openings at the call center,” Auntie Jean said. She turned on the TV and settled into the big arm chair with a glass of tea and no further mention of how they might get hired where she worked except the website to apply at when Altair asked.

\--

“You have to tell us,” Simon said. He was going-away-for-vacation at the start of August when the days were long and hot as hell. His freckled skin was sunburnt from long hours at the pool. There was a whole crowd of kids waiting to hear the true story of Malik’s left arm. Each of them had agreed to bring their part of the pot and it was sitting in a pile on a chair with a bunch of chocolate slowly melting all over the place. 

“Why do I have to? I didn’t agree to your bet.”

But they were kids, possessed of the most basic scale for right and wrong. They knew that he had indulged them and that his encouragement should count as agreement. Altair was giving him the exact same expression that the kids were giving him so Malik pulled in a breath and let it out again.

He told them the sorry tale and had all of them growling in aggravation at being so wrong. 

Simon said, “that happened here?” like he couldn’t believe his own neighborhood could harbor bacteria serious enough to take someone’s arm off. He looked a little white-around the edges as he asked and then put his hand up because he didn’t want to know. 

\--

Altair got hired at the call center a week before someone called Malik in for an interview. The job interrupted their daily lives, the girls had to be left with a real babysitter who didn’t make faces at Malik while they were at the pool. Malik didn’t get laid every morning at eight thirty because Altair had to get ready for work then and he couldn’t come any earlier or Kadar would still be there.

(They made up for that on his first day off when they spent almost the whole of it in some state of sex.)

“Just don’t glare at anyone and you’ll be fine,” Altair said when Malik told him how nervous he was about the job.

“It’s good to know you have such confidence in me.” (It was nice to have someone who had confidence in him. It was nice to have someone who thought his biggest handicap was his glare.) “How’s the apartment search going?”

“Slow,” Altair said, “everything cost too much. I don’t have money for a down payment and so on. So hurry up and get a job.”

Malik pinched him and Altair squealed like one of the little girls.

\--

In between going for an interview (that could have gone both better and worse) and hearing from the call center, Kadar dragged him out to balcony. They drank homemade milkshakes (Kadar’s specialty) as they did nothing at all but sit and watch the neighborhood move.

“So,” Kadar said after a while, “if you get this job and move out with Altair and go on to have a fabulous life, I guess you’ll owe me one.” 

“Why?” 

“Because if I hadn’t gotten the job as a lifeguard, you wouldn’t have met Altair. In fact,” Kadar said, “if you get this job and move out and live fabulously, he’ll owe me one too. I mean, I deserve some kind of finder’s fee sort of thing, right?”

“I’m going to throw this milkshake on your face,” Malik said. 

Oh-but-it was nice to see Kadar smile. It was good to hear him laugh and to laugh with him. 

\--

Malik went directly from getting the phone call informing him he had a job to Altair’s apartment without stopping once. He knocked on the door and nearly forgot why he was there when Auntie Jean opened it. (Altair was probably at work still.) For a whole breath he was stumped about what he wanted to say or do and then he was stepping forward and hugging her. 

“Congratulations,” she said because she had worked there for years-and-years-and-years and was some part of the management and there was no way she hadn’t put in a good word for him. Maybe she hadn’t said a word but moved his application somewhere it would be noticed. That didn’t matter at all so much as Malik had a job for the first time in his life. “I’m taking the girls out for a movie tonight. Altair will be home in about an hour.”

\--

“I love you,” Malik said long after the lights had been turned off and Altair had wiggled them around to fit both of their bodies on his tiny-twin-bed. The room was full of the sound of their breathing and the slow-settle of the darkness layered over with the still-fully-conscious sounds coming from the apartment to the left. 

Altair’s arm tightened around his body, he said, “you just now figure that out?”

“Arrogant ass,” Malik mumbled.

Altair’s answer was a murmur as he kissed the back of Malik’s neck. “I love you too, now go to sleep.”


End file.
